Promaster Digital UV Precision Optical Filters 52mm.

They were $50 each which seemed like a lot, but here I sit with them in hand!

Would you recommend these? Over-kill or a good buy?

I have a Nikon D40 and I envy your warm-toned shots! It looks like I’ll have to look into photoshop!

Ken Rockwell is amazing — I’ve learned SO much from him.

Anywho, we’re getting ready to get a Nikon D40, since it’s best for our budget. Would you say it’s still a good starter D-SLR? Or would you recommend saving for the D60? Will the Sigma 30mm lens work on the D40?

Thank you so much for putting yourself out there for us, Ryan! Blessings!

Answer by Ryan:

The D40 is a great little camera. I’ve shot with it a few times as I have a friend who picked one up. It had a few little things that I didn’t like compared to the D60. For one, the D60 has the awesome ability to display the settings on the LCD screen when you pull your face away from the camera. This is much, much, much easier to see than what you normally have to do, which is peek through the viewfinder and find the little tiny numbers and such.

Another thing is that the D60 is 10 megapixels compared to 6 megapixels. A lot of people will say this doesn’t matter much…but if that were the case, all new cameras would be 6 megapixels. More pixels means more image to play with. This will allow you to make more crops without a big loss in overall image quality. Many of my photos are cropped in from the original. This will allow you to get much more creative with composition.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this: Get the D60 if you can. If it’s something that’s going to make you wait a long time to get a camera…get the D40. You can always step up later as they are sure to have the latest and greatest thing out soon.

I’m wondering if my camera falls under the ‘replace it’ category. I have a Canon Powershot S5 IS. I love it but I also don’t play around with lenses. I’m just not there yet. I love your suggestion to get up or down and not to use the same eye level shots.

Thanks for doing this. I love your blog!

Answer by Ryan:

The Powershot S5 isn’t quite the same thing as a point and shoot camera. It’s a hybrid. It gives you many of the controls that a DSLR would give you without the ability to change lenses. It’s a good camera…a DSLR would be better, but it’s a good one. You can do a lot with that S5.

Answer by Ryan:

Honestly…I have no idea about typepad blogs. I do know that you probably should have known exactly what size the banner should be before creating it…this is tough sometimes when the blog layout already has a built-in banner. I just hope you won’t have to change the size to where it compresses or expands whatever you’ve created. I’m not really sure how to help on that one. Sorry!

i shoot with a canon 40D and primarily use my 50mm f/1.4

love the tip about getting on the ground. and thanks for taking our questions.

Answer by Ryan:

I typically shoot in Aperture Priority Mode. I’ll switch in an out of other things for certain situations, but it’s (A) about 75% of the time. Metering properly will determine on the subject and which lens I am using…also, photoshop covers a multitude of sins.

Digital cameras with a built-in meter, like ours, are bound to have the metering a little bit off. They just don’t have the capacity to do it well all the time. I do meter the face if I am shooting photos of people. I’ll switch it over to Spot Meter mode which takes a meter reading from a very small portion of the frame…right in the center. Just make sure you put the person’s face right in the center and do a meter-lock on them. The same goes for focus, and yes, I typically go for the eyes.

You can hold the shutter halfway down to focus/meter lock or you should have a button somewhere on that thing to do a focus lock / meter lock so you can hold it with your thumb or another free finger and concentrate on framing up your shot. Nice camera you have with a great lens!!

Answer by Ryan:

Thanks for the heads up…still trying to fix everything since switching to WordPress. It’s coming soon!

Answer by Ryan:

Awesome! We’ll have to get out there and shoot some stuff together. You’ll have fun with it.